Biggish Blue is expected to paying $1 billion for Trusteer, making it the company's second-largest acquisition of a security company after its 2006 purchase of Internet Security Systems for about $1.3 billion.

Trusteer has offices in Boston and Tel Aviv, Israel. IBM said it planned to open a cyber security software lab at Trusteer's offices in Tel Aviv, which will employ more than 200 researchers and developers. The lab will be in addition to other research and development facilities in Israel.

Trusteer competes with Symantec, Intel’s McAfee division and EMC's RSA security unit.